


Watching, Waiting

by lifeaftermeteor



Series: Photo Prompt Snippets [2]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Endless Waltz, Post-Series, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 19:19:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7066795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeaftermeteor/pseuds/lifeaftermeteor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heero hangs out on his building's front stoop and does some people watching while waiting for a travel status update from Duo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching, Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Tagged by @claraxbarton for a Tumblr photo prompt. You can find the photo inspiration [here](http://claraxbarton.tumblr.com/post/145031760400/photo-prompt-ahsimwithsake)

Heero sighed as he flipped through the text messages, scrolling up and back down, up and back down, each time the screen dead-ending on the last message from Duo: _Finally outbound. For realz this time._ This was accompanied by a grainy photo out a plane window, the arc of a wing visible over the tarmac. 

This had been several hours ago, and with Duo unresponsive, Heero found himself hoping that meant the other man had taken his advice and popped a sleeping pill. Duo was a nightmare to travel with. Heero knew the other man hated flying because for the duration of the flight, Duo’s teeth would be on edge while his over-attentive brain would analyze the pilots’ abilities, trapped helpless and agitated in the cheap seats as a passenger.

With a sigh, Heero locked the phone screen and shoved the device in his back pocket, shifting to lean back against the stoop, his elbows braced on the step behind him.

The brick walk-up loomed overhead, it’s ancient facade casting the steps in shadow in the cool summer afternoon. The building was a monument to past times, when old equated to quaint and expensive. Nowadays, however, it seemed old was instead synonymous with cheap and undesirable.

But not for him, he thought, scuffing too-worn trainers at the cement underfoot while he squinted up at the back-lit building. Not for Wufei either. The two of them had fallen for the place the moment he and his roommate had crossed the threshold: Wufei for the creaking fire escape; Heero for the people watching.

Blinking out over the street once more, he watched a cab trundle by, honking as two scrawny kids on bikes darted to either side of the vehicle, laughing as they raced each other. The older neighbor with the dog was making what Heero suspected was their fifth circuit around the block since he’d been sitting on the front steps. The tall man with the habitually too tight, too bright pants from unit #7 was blasting some Euro trance out his window. The stoners from fourth floor had just returned, bleary-eyed and happy as they stumbled up the stairs, blissfully unaware of Heero’s Preventers credentials. A few moments later the bartender from L3, her piercings flashing, came bounding down the steps passed him, offering a hasty greeting as she came by. Leaving this early, she must have been covering for someone else, Heero thought, watching her shoulders hunch as she walked away.

Closing his eyes, Heero tilted his head back and sighed, letting the scents and sounds of the block drift around him and allowed himself a brief respite from the anxious countdown until Duo’s arrival.


End file.
